10 Stocks That Got Shredded By Short Sellers In 2012

Investors don't have to disclose their short positions on stocks. So while a review of SEC filings can give you an idea of what investors like, it's hard to tell what they hate.

SunGard, one of the largest financial technology companies in the world has a product called Astec Analytics, which tracks securities lending data — a proxy for short selling.

They shared their data with us, breaking down the most shorted stocks of 2012 down sector by sector. The stocks are ranked by the total amount borrowing fees collected. SunGard then picked the most interesting stocks from the top end of the list of stocks shorted by volume.

There aren't too many shockers in the top spots — Research In Motion and Facebook both get nods — but the runners up may catch you by surprise.

Some of them are extremely expensive to borrow (as you know short sellers borrow stocks, they don't purchase them until the end of the trade) — SunGard included the cost to borrow these stocks over a year ("annualized borrowing cost") to give you sense of how big a bet investors were willing to make on these companies.